The Department of Justice, in refusing to release Vice President Dick Cheney’s interview transcript with the special prosecutor who investigated the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson said for the first time last week that contents of Cheney’s interview have been classified.
In a letter sent Thursday to Citizens of Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), the government watchdog group that filed a Freedom of Information Act request last month seeking access to the transcript, the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) said the documents have been withheld, in due part, because it contains information “protected from disclosure by the National Security Act.”
“We are withholding the records...because they are protected by the deliberative process, presidential communications, and law enforcement investigative privileges,” states the Sept. 18 letter sent by OLC attorney Paul Coborn to CREW chief counsel Anne Weissman. “We are also withholding them...because the records were compiled for law enforcement purposes and their production “could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings.” “The Department is concerned that releasing the records could interfere with future Department investigations by discouraging voluntary cooperation.
More from The Public Record.
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